Tag: painting flowers

Posted in Living Life Well

A Morning Stroll through the Garden

Posted on by Laura Kate

What a difference a year makes. This spring, we have had sufficient rainfall, and the plants are blooming madly. Bill and I both took photos this morning. Here are mine, taken with my little point and shoot canon.

  1. Solomon’s Seal under the oak tree. 2. Catmint with an onion background. 3. Chives growing in a concrete block. 4. Clematis with blooms the size of my palm. 5. A few paeonies. 6. Mouse-eared coreopsis nestled among various pansies. 7. Crepe myrtle shoots. 8. A collection of textured leaves. 9. Woodland columbines.

The bearded iris are just starting to bloom, but my photos of them didn’t turn out well. Perhaps I can persuade Bill to share a few of his.

There is a storm coming tonight and these blooms may end up shredded by wind. A life on the prairie has its trials. (sigh) It’s best to enjoy nature’s floral bounty promptly, for tomorrow it may be gone.

Posted in painting

Friday Finish: Spring Flowers

Posted on by Laura Kate

After my latest experience in watercolor painting that yielded (to me) disappointing results, I decided to sign up for a tutorial. I reasoned that it would give me some pointers on realistic shadows and rebuild my confidence in painting.

Shari Blaukopf has a new course that teaches painting spring flowers. This will be my fourth or fifth tutorial with Shari, so I knew what to expect.

https://learn.shariblaukopf.com/

The first lesson is crocuses. Shari chose a perspective that it dramatic and not hard to do. Her reference photo was taken looking straight down at a group of flowers just opening up.

COPYRIGHT SHARI BLAUKOPF

I jumped right into the lesson, sketching it yesterday and painting it today.

Maybe I could have made my cast shadows darker.

This exercise was fun and relaxing. The palette I used incuded cobalt blue, quinacridone magenta, hansa yellow deep, transparent orange, carbazole violet, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and yellow ochre. Paper is Arches cold press, 140 weight.

After I finish the next two lessons, I’ll go back and try painting my Admirable Weeds subject again.

Posted in painting

Christmas Post – Poinsettia

Posted on by Laura Kate

I call this painting Cheryl’s Poinsettia. Yes, I did paint it, but it was while attending a tutorial session offered by Cheryl Bryan in early December. The image is hers and she walked us through all the steps.

While working on this still life, I felt totally relaxed and engaged – to the point that I was sorry when I had finished it. It’s a feeling I hope to capture again.

Cheryl Bryan’s work can be found here:

https://cibstad07.wixsite.com/mysite-1

Merry Christmas to all.

Posted in painting

My First Rose

Posted on by Laura Kate

Flowers are a popular subject for beginning watercolor students. So far, I have not been attracted to this subject. If given a choice, I would prefer to paint an animal instead of a flower. But today I decided to go for a rose.

And not just any rose. I picked a multi-hued rose, very close up. Obviously, I was ready for a challenge.

This photograph was chosen from a free-usage website, most likely Unsplash. Unfortunately, I saved it to my folder so long ago that I can’t remember where it came from. I was attracted by the assortment of warm colors. I especially like the magenta hues, because I recently purchased a tube of quinacridone magenta.

Day One.
All the initial washes are in place
Deeper values and a little bit of detail

I used my Prismacolor pencils to emphasize the veining in the petals.

I’m reasonably happy with my first effort. But in retrospect, it would have been wiser to pick a rose of one hue – a red, red rose – for my initiation into painting flowers.

Posted in painting

Water Color Class Update

Posted on by Laura Kate

My ten week class in watercolor technique is almost over. For my first lesson, I brought an image of a back-lit, red poppy that I found on Unsplash.

The reference photo can be found here.

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1515789466900-094e60060456?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1099&q=80

I chose this one because of its simplicity, and because it had a nice set of shadows across the poppy. Today I finished my copy.

I’m pleased with this work, and encouraged to begin painting more challenging subjects.